SAVING A PIECE OF HISTORY

DAVID OWENS; Courant Staff WriterTHE HARTFORD COURANT

Since 1908, the fortress-like Salvation Army citadel on Main Street has been a refuge for those seeking nourishment of both body and spirit.

But 93 years is a long time, especially for a congregation that found that the musty basement classrooms, small chapel with poor acoustics and lack of handicapped access were impediments to attracting new families and providing an adequate spiritual home.

So the Salvation Army proposed razing the old citadel and building a new, more modern church in its place.

What happened next was a surprise -- historic preservationists protested, saying the citadel should be saved. The outcry prompted the town's planning and zoning commission to reject the proposal.

Church leaders, frustrated and hurt by the rejection, filed suit. But at the same time, they quietly asked their architect to see if there was a way to save the citadel and still give the Salvation Army its new quarters.

The result is a brand-new plan that preserves the citadel. The plan will be presented to the town planning and zoning commission next month. And preservationists who have already reviewed the plan have pronounced it "a home run."

Church members also like the new plan, said Mike Orfitelli, chairman of the congregation's building committee. Many remain attached to the citadel because their ancestors mortgaged their homes to raise the money to build it, he said.

"It was more than just a building," he said. "It was labor of love, really."

The citadel is believed to be the only such structure in the state and one of only a few left in New England.

Most Salvation Army facilities were originally built for other purposes, then taken over by the organization later. The citadel, however, was built by Salvation Army families and modeled after similar facilities in England, where the army was established in 1865. In Manchester, the citadel is a dramatic presence on Main Street.

The Salvation Army has been struggling to devise a plan to renovate its Main Street property. Unlike other churches, which might move elsewhere, the Salvation Army's mission requires that it be in an urban area, close to the needy.

Initial expansion plans called for preserving the citadel, but concern about the cost made church leaders propose demolishing the citadel and building a new single-story church.

"We were convinced it was the only way we could get what we needed," Orfitelli said.

He and Maj. John Hodgson, the church's pastor, said the opposition surprised them. While appreciating the building's significance to their own community, they said they did not anticipate opposition from the local historical society, the state Historical Commission and the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation.

The trust was so concerned that it placed the citadel on its 2001 list of the most important threatened historic places in the state. Other buildings on the list include Hartford's Colt Armory and Trinity United Methodist Church in New Britain.

"When we saw there was such opposition, we decided to rethink this," Orfitelli said.

The Salvation Army's architect, Frank O. Elliott of Belmont, Mass., said the church has made significant sacrifices to preserve the citadel.

The new plan will not accomplish everything the church had hoped because money must be diverted to such expensive new items as an elevator. Also, he said, the church has paid his firm for design work that will now be discarded.

"Saving the citadel did require more use of special items that weren't in the plan, which drove up the cost of the project," Elliott said. "The Salvation Army was willing to make those compromises knowing that in the end it would be a better building for the community."

The project is estimated to cost $2.1 million and, like the 1908 construction of the citadel, will be financed by church members.

The new plan uses the existing citadel for office space and as a narthex, or fellowship hall, that leads into the new chapel, which will have room for 400 people and a stage large enough to hold the citadel's band and choir. The addition's main floor, which includes the chapel, is 5,900 square feet. The level beneath the chapel, which will have room for a band room, modern nursery and several multipurpose classrooms, is 5,300 square feet. There will also be a 500-square-foot balcony at the rear of the new chapel.

Despite the sacrifices, the plan got an enthusiastic reception from church members last Sunday.

"I think they were pleasantly surprised to find we had found a way to keep the building up," Orfitelli said. "I had people hugging me.

"In a lot of ways we didn't want the building to come down in the beginning, but sort of felt we had to. The interesting thing is that the plan makes good use of old and new space. I think that's what people are appreciative of."

John W. Shannahan, director of the state Historical Commission, said he and his staff were stunned when the Salvation Army presented the revised plan for informal review Jan. 9.

"We were both surprised and delighted and encouraged by the Salvation Army's modified proposal to incorporate the citadel into their new facility," Shannahansaid. "That came as a complete surprise. We had no clue it was in the works."

The historic commission can ask the state attorney general to oppose any "unreasonable destruction" of a historic structure. Still, Shannahan said, the commission did not relish taking on the Salvation Army, an organization known for its work to aid the needy and disaster victims.

"The last group in the world that one should have to fight legally is the Salvation Army," Shannahan said.

Brad Schide, Hartford County representative for the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, said the new plan is a "home run."

"It accomplishes their goal, which is to build a new church, and accomplishes everybody else's goal, which is to save the citadel," Schide said.

And the Manchester Historical Society plans to go to the planning and zoning commission to express its support for the new plan, society President David Smith said.

"We saw the architect's versions of it at the meeting the other day and we thought it was quite attractive, actually," Smith said. "We'll speak up in favor of this new plan of theirs. It is a compromise. We realize life is full of compromises."

As for some old homes behind the citadel the Army plans to tear down to make way for parking, Smith said the society will support that, too.

"They're historic in that they're old, but they are not significant," he said.

The lawsuit appealing the planning and zoning commission decision is on hold. If the new plan is approved, the suit will be withdrawn, Hodgson said.

"It was both a surprise and a delight to learn there was an alternative that would hopefully meet their needs as well as preserve a significant structure," Shannahan said.